Summary

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford. His research on Beowulf is still considered a standard in the field. Tolkien, however, unlike most Oxford dons, stepped out of his role as professor to create popular literature. Tolkien's best-known writings were The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, in which he created a fully realized world known as Middle-earth, vaguely identifiable as Northern Europe in a pre-history that never was. To bring his world to life, he produced detailed geography and cartography as well as a legendary background. He peopled the world with diverse types of inhabitants and created spoken and written languages for them. By doing this, he essentially created modern fantasy literature and a standard for subsequent writers to chase and miss. A British poll at the end of the 20th century named The Lord of the Rings the most important English-language work of that century. During his lifetime, Tolkien did not appreciate people focusing on him rather than on his writings. He felt that his writings were more worthy of attention. With apologies to the late gentleman, he is now due some notice.

A great story marred by an awful narration

Would you try another book from Wyatt North and/or David Glass?

For the life of me, I cannot understand why the producers chose this narrator, and then stuck with him throughout production. Nasal, high pitched, using an odd rhythm and accenting all the wrong places in the flow of the story. Terrible reading. I have 400 some audio books and I'm never had to just abandon a book like this because of the narrator. How hard could it have been to get a good one? Or even a less bad one?

Would you be willing to try another one of David Glass’s performances?

No, no, no, no, no. Don't understand how he got into the business.

Was J.R.R. Tolkien worth the listening time?

No, because of the narration. I will read the book instead as I am a huge Tolkien fan.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Overall

3 out of 5 stars

Performance

2 out of 5 stars

Story

2 out of 5 stars

H. Walker

19-08-16

it says Tolkien so I bought it. Not much to it.

it was ok. not new, nothing deep.but why are the last few chapters on Pope Francis?

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Overall

4 out of 5 stars

Performance

2 out of 5 stars

Story

4 out of 5 stars

Amazon Customer

19-05-18

The narration was tolerable at 1.25

The biography was clear and concise, but the narration is one of the worst I've heard. Having said that, if I had set it to 1.25 to begin with, the beginning wouldn't have been as hard to listen to.

Overall

4 out of 5 stars

Performance

4 out of 5 stars

Story

4 out of 5 stars

Katherine Walden

11-10-17

Nice History of Tolkien

Good account of Tolkien's life, including the Inkling era. However, I wasn't impressed with the last two chapters that had nothing to do with Tolkien and were just previews of the author's biography on the current pope.

Overall

5 out of 5 stars

Performance

1 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

Amazon Customer

09-03-17

Good in formation......BUT.......

For such a short book it has plenty of information in it that is very interesting. Here is where the BUT comes in.......the narrator is beyond poor.....sounds like a robot very very poor and takes away from the book because of it.

Overall

5 out of 5 stars

Performance

3 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

Jessica Freeland

07-12-15

So interesting...

I have always been a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien and learning more of what inspired his works makes the series all the more special.

Overall

3 out of 5 stars

Performance

3 out of 5 stars

Story

3 out of 5 stars

Tibber

05-12-15

college level report on Tolkien

Generic biography, about as thorough as it can be for being so short. *NOTE* this audio includes about 30 minutes of a book on pope Francis so it is even shorter than listed. It would have been better if the author put more perspective on Tolkien and his times. This work comes across as "just the facts" without much pointed out as to why the facts are of interest.

Overall

4 out of 5 stars

Performance

3 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

Lori from Utah

15-06-15

Informational

I like the book because I was able to learn more about Tolkien. I wanted him to go more in detail on the Lord of the rings. I would suggest the Book to any hard-core Lord of the rings fans.